School Name: Watson Lake Secondary School
School District: Yukon Education
Inquiry Team Members:hoda.abdelwahab@yesnet.yk.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: hoda.abdelwahab@yesnet.yk.ca
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE
Grade Levels: Secondary (8-12)
Curricular Area(s): Science
Focus Addressed: Differentiated instruction, Flexible learning, Inclusion and inclusive instructional strategies
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? To develop a better way to foster engagement in a rural multi-grade, multi-subject class and preventing learners from falling behind in both subjects.
Scanning: I checked the learners’ achievements on Moodle in both subjects early October 2018, so I can
collect enough data to create a planning guide to apply in the classroom. Moodle’s materials is prepared for an average and/or above average learners. I prepared a questionnaire using the four key questions to find out the learners’ interest. During laboratory experiments, I noticed the learners’ understanding and enjoyment. Every learner is allowed to write the unit exam online and is allowed to re-try it up to five times. Most of the learners were re-writing the exam more than once, however the learners were not satisfied. Some of the learners can’t self-regulate in class and can’t work independently without being distracted by browsing other websites.
Focus: Modifying curricular materials to improve engagement.
Hunch: Moodle is not working for all the students in the multi-grade multi-subject class. Some learners
are already on Individual learning Plan.
New Professional Learning: I need to re-design the assigned materials on Biology 12 Moodle. My challenge is “Quality or Quantity”. My challenge is to create different materials for each course while focusing on the individual differences of the twelve learners. I used the internet, textbook, smart board, questionnaires and Moodle.
Taking Action: 1-Put learners at the centre:
-Teacher will mail a letter home to Parents/Guardians stating changes to Moodle platform.
-Teacher will plan a different load of assignments for both subjects.
-Teacher will hand every learner a questionnaire asking about the learner’s best style of learning.
2-Emphasize the social nature of learning:
-Teacher tried to link Biology concepts to the learners’ social life. For example; -Understanding the effect of temperature, pH and the ratio of substrate to the enzymes on the digesting process.
-Learners were asked to consider these questions:
a) why do people suffer from headaches after drinking alcohol the night before?
b) “FEED a cold but STARVE a fever”, is correct. Why?
3-Understand that emotions are central to learning:
– Teacher will identify the barriers for the challenged learners.
-Teacher will check for learners’ self-regulating inside the class.
4-Recognize individual differences:
-Teacher will use all the assigned tasks to assess the learners individually.
-Learners were asked to choose resources to complete tasks from.
-Learners were divided into two different groups on Moodle for every subject.
-The challenged learners were assigned different worksheets and were provided with textbook or an e-book (if she/he has a computer) to complete work at home
Checking: -Biology 11 learners were glad to see the printed out required tasks. Some of them, were actually encourage to complete the tasks.
-The class is quiet enough for the individual teaching process to continue.
-At the beginning of December 2018, there was a lot of resistance to the new changes, but it faded away when the challenged learners started completing assignments.
-Eventually every learner got used to the teacher approaching them at the beginning of every class to record what are they working on.
-Some learners appreciated the new style of pursuing different resources to complete the tasks while others worked better with the teacher’s guidance.
-Some learners in biology 12 were given a rubric and asked to self-assess an assigned project, the first project was not as satisfactory as the third project. The learners gained more skills to fulfill all the rubric requirements.
Reflections/Advice: – If you’re using Moodle in a rural multi-grade, a multi-subject class, it may not work for all the learners in the class.
– As a teacher in a rural multi-grade, multi-subject class, Moodle used to be a very helpful tool because it allowed every learner to work at her/his own pace. This is the first year that I faced difficulties with learners.
– Next year, I will divide Moodle into three or four different levels of the same subject.
-I refreshed my skills by re-designing, downloading new assignments and hiding some already existing assignments.
– I will use the pre-planned smartboard folder and keep it on the projector, while I’m teaching a different class or conducting a laboratory experiment.
– Keeping a class record in one folder for the learner’s attendance and achievements comes in handy when I’m teaching a multi-grade multi-subject class.
– As a life long learner, I will keep updating Moodle materials to meet every class’s needs.
– I will always integrate all the updated technologies into everyday teaching.